The Sound and the Fury

William Faulkner

Character List

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Mr. Jason Compson III

Mr. Compson is a well-spoken but very cynical and detached
man. He subscribes to a philosophy of determinism and fatalism—he believes
life is essentially meaningless and that he can do little to change
the events that befall his family. Despite his cynicism, however,
Mr. Compson maintains notions of gentlemanliness and family honor,
which Quentin inherits. Mr. Compson risks the family’s financial
well-being in exchange for the potential prestige of Quentin’s Harvard
education, and he tells stories that foster Quentin’s nearly fanatical
obsession with the family name.

Though he inculcates his son with the concept of family
honor, Mr. Compson is unconcerned with it in practice. He acts indifferent to
Quentin about Caddy’s pregnancy, telling him to accept it as a natural
womanly shortcoming. Mr. Compson’s indifference greatly upsets Quentin,
who is ashamed by his father’s disregard for traditional Southern
ideals of honor and virtue. Mr. Compson dismisses Quentin’s concerns
about Caddy and tells his son not to take himself so seriously,
which initiates Quentin’s rapid fall toward depression and suicide.
Mr. Compson dies of alcoholism shortly thereafter.

Mrs. Caroline Compson

Mrs. Compson’s negligence and disregard contribute directly
to the family’s downfall. Constantly lost in a self-absorbed haze
of hypochondria and self-pity, Mrs. Compson is absent as a mother
figure to her children and has no sense of her children’s needs.
She even treats the mentally disabled Benjy cruelly and selfishly.
Mrs. Compson foolishly lavishes all of her favor and attention upon
Jason, the one child who is incapable of reciprocating her love.
Mrs. Compson’s self-absorption includes a neurotic insecurity over
her Bascomb family name, the honor of which is undermined by her
brother Maury’s adulterous behavior. Caroline ultimately makes the
decision to change her youngest son’s name from Maury to Benjamin because
of this insecurity about her family’s reputation.

Candace Compson

Caddy is perhaps the most important figure in the novel,
as she represents the object of obsession for all three of her brothers.
As a child, Caddy is somewhat headstrong, but very loving and affectionate.
She steps in as a mother figure for Quentin and Benjy in place of
the self-absorbed Mrs. Compson. Caddy’s muddying of her underwear
in the stream as a young girl foreshadows her later promiscuity.
It also presages and symbolizes the shame that her conduct brings
on the Compson family.

Caddy does feel some degree of guilt about her promiscuity because
she knows it upsets Benjy so much. On the other hand, she does not
seem to understand Quentin’s despair over her conduct. She rejects
the Southern code that has defined her family’s history and that
preoccupies Quentin’s mind. Unlike Quentin, who is unable to escape
the tragic world of the Compson household, Caddy manages to get
away. Though Caddy is disowned, we sense that this rejection enables
her to escape an environment in which she does not really belong.

Benjy Compson

A moaning, speechless idiot, Benjy is utterly dependent
upon Caddy, his only real source of affection. Benjy cannot understand any
abstract concepts such as time, cause and effect, or right and wrong—he
merely absorbs visual and auditory cues from the world around him.
Despite his utter inability to understand or interpret the world,
however, Benjy does have an acute sensitivity to order and chaos,
and he can immediately sense the presence of anything bad, wrong,
or out of place. He is able to sense Quentin’s suicide thousands
of miles away at Harvard, and senses Caddy’s promiscuity and loss
of virginity. In light of this ability, Benjy is one of the only characters
who truly takes notice of the Compson family’s progressing decline.
However, his disability renders Benjy unable to formulate any response
other than moaning and crying. Benjy’s impotence—and the impotence
of all the remaining Compson men—is symbolized and embodied by his
castration during his teenage years.

Quentin Compson

The oldest of the Compson children, Quentin feels an inordinate burden
of responsibility to live up to the family’s past greatness and prestige.
He is a very intelligent and sensitive young man, but is paralyzed
by his obsession with Caddy and his preoccupation with a very traditional
Southern code of conduct and morality. This Southern code defines
order and chaos within Quentin’s world, and causes him to idealize
nebulous, abstract concepts such as honor, virtue, and feminine
purity. His strict belief in this code causes Quentin profound despair
when he learns of Caddy’s promiscuity. Turning to Mr. Compson for
guidance, Quentin feels even worse when he learns that his father
does not care about the Southern code or the shame Caddy’s conduct
has brought on the family. When Quentin finds that his sister and
father have disregarded the code that gives order and meaning to
his life, he is driven to despondency and eventually suicide.

Quentin’s Southern code also prevents him from being
a man of action. The code preoccupies Quentin with blind devotion
to abstract concepts that he is never able to act upon assertively
or effectively. Quentin is full of vague ideas, such as the suicide
pact with Caddy or the desire for revenge against Dalton Ames, but
his ideas are always unspecific and inevitably end up either rejected
by others or carried out ineffectively. Quentin’s focus on ideas
over deeds makes him a highly unreliable narrator, as it is often
difficult to tell which of the actions he describes have actually
occurred and which are mere fantasy.

Jason Compson IV

Jason’s legacy, even from his earliest childhood, is one
of malice and hatred. Jason remains distant from the other children.
Like his brothers, Jason is fixated on Caddy, but his fixation is
based on bitterness and a desire to get Caddy in trouble. Ironically,
the loveless Jason is the only one of the Compson children who receives
Mrs. Compson’s affection. Jason has no capacity to accept, enjoy,
or reciprocate this love, and eventually he manipulates it to steal money
from Miss Quentin behind Mrs. Compson’s back. Jason rejects not
only familial love, but romantic love as well. He hates all women
fervently and thus cannot date or marry and have children. Jason’s
only romantic satisfaction as an adult comes from a prostitute in
Memphis.

Unlike Quentin, who is obsessed with the past, Jason
thinks solely about the present and the immediate future. He constantly tries
to twist circumstances in his favor, almost always at the expense
of others. Jason is very clever and crafty, but never uses these
talents in the spirit of kindness or generosity. Though he clearly
desires personal gain, Jason has no higher goals or aspirations.
He steals and hoards money in a strongbox, but not for any particular
purpose other than selfishness. On the whole, Jason is extremely
motivated but completely without ambition.

Jason’s lack of achievement stems primarily from his
relentless self-pity. Jason never forgives Caddy for the loss of
the job at Herbert’s bank, and he is unable to move past this setback
to achieve anything worthwhile in his later life. Ironically, Jason
becomes the head of the Compson household after his father’s death—an
indication of the low to which the once-great family has sunk.

Miss Quentin

Miss Quentin is the lone member of the newest generation
of the Compson family. Many parallels arise between Miss Quentin
and her mother, Caddy, but the two differ in important ways. Miss Quentin
repeats Caddy’s early sexual awakening and promiscuity, but, unlike
Caddy, she does not feel guilty about her actions. Likewise, Miss
Quentin grows up in a meaner, more confined world than Caddy does,
and is constantly subject to Jason’s domineering and cruelty. Not
surprisingly, we see that Miss Quentin is not nearly as loving or
compassionate as her mother. She is also more worldly and headstrong
than Caddy. Yet Miss Quentin’s eventual success in recovering her
stolen money and escaping the family implies that her worldliness
and lack of compunction—very modern values—indeed work to her benefit.

Dilsey

Dilsey is the only source of stability in the Compson
household. She is the only character detached enough from the Compsons’
downfall to witness both the beginning and the end of this final
chapter of the family history. Interestingly, Dilsey lives her life
based on the same set of fundamental values—family, faith, personal
honor, and so on—upon which the Compsons’ original greatness was
built. However, Dilsey does not allow self-absorption to corrupt
her values or spirit. She is very patient and selfless—she cooks,
cleans, and takes care of the Compson children in Mrs. Compson’s
absence, while raising her own children and grandchildren at the
same time. Dilsey seems to be the only person in the household truly
concerned for the Compson children’s welfare and character, and
she treats all of the children with love and fairness, even Benjy.
The last chapter’s focus on Dilsey implies a hope for renewal after
the tragedies that have occurred. We sense that Dilsey is the new
torchbearer of the Compson legacy, and represents the only hope
for resurrecting the values of the old South in a pure and uncorrupted
form.

I believe Caddy is the oldest, followed by Quentin, Jason and Benji. In 1910, Quentin is a freshman at Harvard. That would make him six in 1898, and probably make Caddy around eight. I'd say Jason is around four or five in 1898, making him 34-35 in 1928 (Benjy's 33rd birthday). It's obvious that the four of them are fairly close in age, all born between 1889-1895.